The Future of Capitalism in an Age of Insecurity Conference
Held on 20 and 21 October, 2023 in the Great Hall of the Marshall Building at LSE, The Future of Capitalism in an Age of Insecurityconference brought together leading scholars and analysts to examine the effects of geopolitical turmoil, democratic discontent, anti-globalism, and technological change on capitalist economies. Panelists explored the role that governments, businesses and global institutions might play in helping to negotiate these challenges at the local, national, and global levels.
Use the links below to watch the video, and listen to the conference keynote lecture and panel discussions.
Watch the conference video - The Future of Capitalism in an Age of Insecurity
Conference keynote - Rethinking market capitalism: Innovation and the Path to Shared Prosperity 20 October 2023
In this keynote event of the US Phelan Centre Future of Capitalism in an Age of Insecurityconference, MIT's Professor Daron Acemoglu explored the possibilities for reforming capitalism to bring greater prosperity and security to more people.
The widely held idea that democracy and markets could or would flourish everywhere has run aground. Public confidence in political and economic liberalism has waned since the triumphalism of the 1990s. What practical steps can political leaders and policymakers take to restore public trust in governments’ ability to manage markets as a source of collective prosperity?
MIT's Daron Acemoglu argued that modern market economies have focused excessively on automation and cost-cutting. What we need is not more innovation for eliminating jobs or intensifying surveillance, but a renewed focus on creating new tasks, providing better decision-making tools and granting greater autonomy to workers. Good jobs, which pay high wages and deploy worker skills, are not only critical for productivity growth, but also essential for re-creating democratic citizenship.
LSE's incoming President and Vice Chancellor Larry Kramer opened the Phelan US Centre's conference, The Future of Capitalism in an Age of Insecurity, on Saturday 21 October, and joined participants beforehand for breakfast.
See the photographs from the conference panels on the Phelan US Centre's Flickr site.
Listen to a podcast recording of Globalisation and the return of geopolitics
This recording includes introductory comments from LSE's incoming President and Vice Chancellor Larry Kramer.
Panel details
The resurgence of geopolitics is reshaping everything from supply chains to sustainability. What will the resulting new geo-economic landscape look like? Are we entering an era of greater regionalisation and localisation of trade and finance? If so, what can policymakers do to maximise social wellbeing while minimising the risk of great power conflict? This panel considered the implications of mounting geopolitical rivalry and economic nationalism for global capitalism.
Public trust in the competence and fairness of democratic governments has eroded. Populist insurgencies, mostly on the far right, are hollowing out the political center, the bedrock of democratic capitalism. What should governments, parties and businesses do to restore public confidence in democratic capitalism? What are the main obstacles standing in the way? This panel explored the challenges of rebuilding democratic support for capitalism at a time of extraordinary political discontent and volatility.
Popular support for global economic institutions like the WTO, IMF and World Bank has weakened in the Global West as well as in the Global South. Pressures to ‘take back control’ are rising in the advanced industrial nations. Demands for greater input and fairness in emerging economies are widespread. The emergence of rival models global governance also signals a shift. This panel focused on whether and how these global institutions might be reformed to make them more relevant and responsive to today’s economic, technological, and environmental challenges.
Roundtable panelists:
Leslie Vinjamuri, Chatham House and SOAS University of London (Chair)
